Two Penn State professors presented the pro side of the genetic engineering debate at the Fogelsville Volunteer Fire Company Thursday night as part of Rep. Gary Day’s (R-Lehigh/Berks) annual Agricultural Town Hall Meeting.

Two Penn State professors presented the pro side of the genetic engineering debate at the Fogelsville Volunteer Fire Company Thursday night as part of Rep. Gary Day’s (R-Lehigh/Berks) annual Agricultural Town Hall Meeting. (MORNING CALL FILE PHOTO)

Genetically engineered crops: Something to be feared or something to be encouraged?

Two Penn State professors presented the pro side of the genetic-engineering debate at the Fogelsville Volunteer Fire Company Thursday night as part of state Rep. Gary Day's (R-Lehigh/Berks) annual Agricultural Town Hall Meeting.

About 60 constituents, many of them local farmers, turned out for the meeting and sandwich buffet.

Before introducing the speakers, Day said the 187th District he represents, which includes Upper Macungie Township, was predominantly agricultural but has shifted as farming has given way to residential and commercial development.

He said the topic of Thursday's informational meeting, traditionally referred to in his office as "Farmers' Night," surfaced when he visited his alma mater to learn more about Penn State's work with genetically modified organisms (GMOs).

GMOs are organisms that have been altered to produce specific characteristics — such as cold tolerance or pesticide resistance in plants — by extracting genes responsible for certain traits from the DNA strands of one organism and inserting them into another.

"You rely on your university to give you the facts so you can make decisions," Day said in introducing Richard Roush, the new dean of Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences, and Troy Ott, a reproductive biologist in Penn State's Animal Science Department.

Roush said genetic engineering is not that much different from traditional plant and animal breeding where you select for a desired trait, it's just faster.

"Genetic engineering uses proteins found in the natural world to edit, copy and paste DNA," he said, adding that the evolving technique has the benefit over traditional breeding of being more specific and more rapid.

Restrictions on GMOs vary across the globe. Many European countries are restrictive with regard to growing GMOs but are more relaxed about importing them.

Many countries allow or even require labeling of products containing GMOs. The U.S. does not. According to the non-GMO Project, about 80 percent of all processed products on U.S. supermarket shelves contain some GMO ingredients.

Roush said fear factors associated with genetic engineering include worry of the unknown, that the technology might somehow escape and run amok and that it's unnatural.

He said that while a healthy dose of skepticism is good, science points to both the efficacy and safety of GMOs. He suggested such emerging technologies will be necessary to feed an exploding global population.

"It's not the only way, but it's an important tool … and we need that in our tool kit if we are going to feed another 3 billion people on this planet."

Roush, who served as director of University of California's Sustainable Agriculture Program from 2003-06, said GMOs are a key part of the sustainability equation because they can produce drought-tolerant crops, increase nutrient uptake efficiency, reduce pesticide and fossil fuel use and reduce tillage.

Other uses of GMOs in crops, some of which he said are still waiting regulatory approval, include grains fortified with Vitamin A and iron, fruit containing vaccines, crops high in Omega 3 oils and more readily digestible wheat.

Both panelists said clearing regulator hurdles for GMOs in plant production has been less difficult than the technology's use in animal production.

Ott pointed to transgenic salmon, which grows two to four times faster than non-GMO salmon and but has languished while awaiting FDA approval despite 19 years and $17 million in research. He called the impending decision "a watershed moment" for GMOs in animal production.

Controversy regarding GMOs in food production include the possibility of "enhanced" species such as the AquaAdvantage salmon escaping net pens and out-competing native species, unintended human health consequences of ingesting GMO foods, GMOs contaminating non-GMO crops, pesticide resistance in plants, government restrictions on labeling and the technology's ability to feed an expanding global population.